Why there will NOT be a Final Fantasy 7 Remake in the foreseeable future
(for the PS3 and XBOX 360 anyway)

You want one. I want one. If Square-Enix got off their ass and made one, they would probably make more money than they ever did before. But it isn’t going to happen. Final Fantasy 7 when it came out was called “perhaps the greatest game ever made.” The idea of a Final Fantasy 7 Remake for the PS3 has circled the internet in countless forums, YouTube and internet articles. But any claims that they are going to ACTUALLY make one are usually based on wishful thinking and rumors. This myth has gone on far enough.

Personally, it is getting tiresome to see so many fans looking for any scrap of information regarding an FF7 remake as you surf the internet. Any time you listen to a remix of a Final Fantasy song on YouTube for example, there are at least 3 comments asking if it is part of a remake. There are fan-made game menus, fan-made covers to a PS3 remake, fan-made mods to the original game. Now that’s there is Photoshop, a lot of Hi-Res 3D Pictures of characters thanks to the underwhelming movie Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children are abundant, and many fans of the series with programming skills make some battle scenes and menus, and sadly, these have been cited as evidence for a remake. So instead of looking for official trailers, official advertisements or official news, their hopes are stoked by fan made AMVs and tidbits of things made for different purposes.

Sadly, people don’t use their brains when they want something so badly. They look around and see remakes of games like Super Mario Bros Wii, and even the remakes of the first six Final Fantasy games, and then assume that it’s entirely possible to make a Final Fantasy 7 remake with crystal clear graphics, voice acting, remastered scenes, all new bosses, and a new mix of One Winged Angel. I’m getting anxious just typing about it. But Final Fantasy 7 is not a simple platformer that can merely copied and have its graphics updated a little like a Mario Game. Nor is it like the GBA and NDS ports of the 2D Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy 7 is not a book that can just be reprinted. To make a Playstation 3 or XBOX 360 remake, you would have to create new environments, new monsters, new character models, new music, new voice acting, etc. The game engine itself would have to be redone. Would the camera be static as it was in the original game? Or will it follow you as it did in Final Fantasy X, or FF7: Dirge of Cerberus? Questions like this would have to be answered. This would take years.

Without the company spending a good part of 4 or 5 years on it, there can be no 3D remake of Final Fantasy VII. What there can be is a port to the PSP or the Playstation Network (the latter has already been done). This is easier to do and much cheaper to accomplish. To port a game to the PSP requires not nearly as much coding as making a game from scratch does, and to essentially upload the game to the internet and download it onto your PS3 takes virtually no effort at all. But as we will see, there isn’t even any evidence that FF7 will be ported to the PSP!

Square-Enix staff like Yoshinori Kitase (Producer of FFXIII and Director of FFVII) and President Yoichi Wada are constantly grilled by eager interviewers about the possibility of a remake. Articles generally don’t cite the words of Kitase, Final Fantasy XIII director Motomu Toriyama or Tetsuya Nomura: the people who actually make the games and are in charge of their production. They cite the president Yoichi Wada, who isn’t really involved with making the games. He is only there to make sure that the company doesn’t go bankrupt. For the past ten years, his strategy has been to merge with other gaming companies in order to increase the number of programmers and designers working for the company, in order to “increase the skill set” of the company and approach many more demographics with games. He is not personally involved with the games. If they do cite, Kitase and the others, they are usually quote mines. But even Wada has never EXPLICITLY said there will be a remake.

A good way to discover whether or not any article you read or forum you see is truthful or not is to check the sources of the article. Every time when someone does this, it will lead back to sources that will either deny there will be a remake, or are simply inconclusive. You see many claims like Yoichi Wada is considering it, Motomu Toriyama would like to do it and Kitase says they can do it in a year! The most outrageous claim I have seen is that it is coming out in 2012. Let’s look at the source of these claims, shall we?

1) Yoshinori Kitase – “The remake can be made in a year”

Kitase has had a guiding role in every Final Fantasy game since Final Fantasy III. He helped write and he directed Final Fantasy VII. If anyone would be proclaiming to the rooftops that there will be a remake, it would be him. Instead, when he was interviewed regarding Final Fantasy XIII, the game the company had been working on exclusively for four years, he didn’t mention it. He had to be specifically asked about the possibility of a remake. Remember that point.

Here’s what he actually said according to an interview with TechDigest in February 2010:

Interviewer:You both [Kitase and Toriyama] worked on Final Fantasy VII, a game very close to my heart! There are always rumours of a possible Final Fantasy VII remake, but would you personally like to see it happen? Do you think a remake is even necessary?

YK: If it were possible that we had all the right facilities and the right environment to be able to make and prepare a Final Fantasy VII remake within a year, we’d very much like a go at it!

The key words there are: IF it were possible… to prepare a remake in a year, we’d like to. But it is not possible. Remember also that the question asked “would you like to see it happen”, not “is it going to happen”. Wants and realities are two different things. Kitase continues:

YK: But even Final Fantasy XIII has taken over three and a half years to create. If we were to recreate Final Fantasy VII with the same level of graphical detail as you see in Final Fantasy XIII, we’d imagine that that would take as much as three or four times longer than the three and a half years it has taken to put this Final Fantasy together! So it’s looking pretty unrealistic! But if any such situation came about by any remote chance, then yes, we’d do it!

So Kitase says that it is unrealistic and infeasible to make a remake as he’d estimate it would take many years, from 9 to 12 years in fact. Notice how this is all hypothetical. There is nothing concrete here about a remake in production, and even if the announcement was made tomorrow, we would probably have to wait another 10 years. In that time, new systems would have come out, and fans like me that grew up with the game will be in their 30s and 40s. This is just not a viable enterprise.

But somehow, in every forum and article I have ever seen on the subject, the phrases “if we could, we would, but we can’t”, and “we’d like to but…” turned into “we are thinking about it!”

The other main guys who worked on Final Fantasy VII, like writers Tetsuya Nomura, and Kazushige Nojima and Hironobu Sakaguchi have been hard at work with other projects and their own companies. Nomura has been working for several years on Versus XIII while Nojima is writing it. They would need to be consultants in any remake of the game, and they haven’t shown any leanings towards that either.

Now you might disagree with Kitase’s assessment of how long the game would take (even I do). Unfortunately for us, there are really two counters to this. First, he is in a better position than you or I to judge how long the project will take. He lead and helped write the original game in the first place, and he also produced FFXIII (a game with similiar graphics that took 3-4 years); it’s more than likely he knows what he’s talking about. Thanks to the decisions of Yoichi Wada (see below) Square Enix does not want to commit as many workers on 1 game as FFXIII enjoyed. So even though the technology and experience has gotten better, the manpower would be drastically reduced, making the game take much longer to make. Second, even if we disagreed with Kitase, Kitase is the guy talking to Yoichi Wada and the other programmers. If he doesn’t think it can be done fast, it is doubtful that the CEO does either.

2) Yoichi Wada – “We are considering a remake”

As a CEO, Wada has been concerned with the more broad financial aspects of Square, not the quality of specific games. Merging with Enix and Eidos, and marketing specific products to the places that want them have been foremost on his mind. Arkham Asylum goes to Europe and North America, Dragon Quest goes to Japan and Final Fantasy goes everywhere. Wada consistently gives vague replies. When asked by Gamasutra in July 2010 about what accounted for Square Enix’s 2010 profits (whether it was Arkham Asylum or Final Fantasy XIII) he replied:

YW: [Our sales trend] shows steady growth, so I think it’s strategy. Of course if you look at each year, some years had a better lineup of products than the other years. But if it were just driven by the quality of the products, it wouldn’t have been this way. It doesn’t happen naturally.

Of course there was a positive impact from the acquisition of Eidos, or the release of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. But basically the strategy was to pursue growth, and that’s the way it turned out to be.

When he was asked about the mixed reception of Final Fantasy XIII, he gave political answers:

Interviewer: Now that Final Fantasy XIII has launched globally, in the end were you satisfied with its performance and the audience reaction to the title?

YW: Looking at the numbers alone, it is pretty good, because we were able to release the latest Final Fantasy in all three markets of Japan, United States, and Europe in a very short period of time, and we were able to reach 5 million units rapidly [this was his goal for the game] — and I think this product will grow further. But when it comes to the customers’ reaction to the quality of the game, some value it highly and some are not very happy with it.

Ignoring the account of how many units sold, what Wada said could be said about any game. Then Wada was asked:

Interviewer: What do you think about how the game turned out?

YW: I think this is a product that was able to meet the expectations for those who know Final Fantasy. There are all kinds of games around in the market today. Should Final Fantasy become a new type of the game or should Final Fantasy not become a new type of game? The customers have different opinions. It’s very difficult to determine which way it should go.

I must disagree with Wada regarding his judgment of Final Fantasy XIII. But the important part here is the fact that the future of Final Fantasy remains unclear to us: either Wada means the company is at a crossroads, or he is giving a non-answer. At the time of this interview, preproduction and production on the sequels to Final Fantasy XIII were underway, and Final Fantasy XIV hadn’t been released yet. The question of whether or not Final Fantasy will make the same kind of game it always has, or revolutionize itself is not answered at all. But there is no mention of a remake.

Six months before however (Jan 2010), Wada did make it clear that the graphic and time demands for new Final Fantasy games were too great to keep going as they have been. Games like Final Fantasy VII (3 Years), Final Fantasy VIII (2 Years), Final Fantasy IX (2 Years), Final Fantasy X (4 Years), Final Fantasy XII (4 ½ Years) and Final Fantasy XIII (3 ½ Years) take a long time. With Final Fantasy XIV, he noted that this generation has reached the logical conclusion:

YW: “[Final Fantasy XIII] has been well-received by its core audience, and the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV Online will take this era of RPG development to its logical conclusion. We believe the direction of gaming going forward lies not with expensive dedicated consoles that are difficult and costly to develop for. Rather, as Nintendo has demonstrated with the success of its Wii console, the future of video games is in greater inclusion, bringing new gamers of all generations together, playing accessible titles with minimal technical requirements [read—minimal expense and time]. With these goals in mind, a text format Final Fantasy is the obvious choice.”

Sadly, this means the next game will not try to push boundaries anymore, but be made much more quickly and efficiently. For Wada, Final Fantasy seems just to be a brand that can be pushed, no matter what game is packaged with it. He does not even want to make a Final Fantasy XV, but a text-based game. Personally, I like the idea that newer games need not have as insanely complex graphics as Final Fantasy XIII. Perhaps better plot and more expansive worlds can be made more quickly, thus allowing the stories to be refined. But the last thing I want is a text game that can be placed on graphing calculators and cell phones. Wada then describes his plans for Final Fantasy XV, or as Akitoshi Kawazu confirmed “Final Fantasy: Chapter of Crystal Beginnings:

YW: “The decision to drop numbers was part of our ongoing internal initiative to position the Final Fantasy brand for continued growth. We don’t want our grandkids playing Final Fantasy LXVIII. That would be silly.”

Weirdly enough, this message hasn’t really trickled down to the guys making the games, but they remain realists. They have been too busy making the sequels and expansions for XIII and XIV. Motomu Toriyama, the director of Final Fantasy X and writer/director of Final Fantasy XIII said this when interviewed a month later (2/8/10):

Interviewer: How do you feel about Yoichi Wada’s statement that Final Fantasy XIII will be the last game of its kind for Square Enix?

MT: We don’t know exactly what he meant by that. We don’t really know what he meant by this style of game. If you consider that during Final Fantasy XIII’s development, at peak time the team consisted of over 300 people. It was a huge team, plus it took a several long years to get the game finished. So, if Mr Wada meant that we would never make another Final Fantasy title with the similar number of people, taking as long as FFXIII did, we would agree.

That paragraph warrants rereading. The production time for Final Fantasy XIII and XIV took way too long to warrant ever doing it again. And Kitase, if you remember, suggested it would take 9-12 years for a remake of the game. Toriyama however ended on an optimistic note:

MT: Obviously in the future we want to be much more efficient. Having worked on XIII, we feel that we have got much better at making good games for high definition consoles. In the future our teams will be smaller and more effectively run. We suspect that is what Mr Wada meant by his statement.”

But the fact is that no amount of organization will speed up the amount of time necessary to make the remake in a good amount of time. Ten years of work can’t be done in one. And if it was, it wouldn’t turn out well.

So when on March 22nd, 2010, a year ago, Yoichi Wada in an interview said this:

YW: “Right now we don’t have a clear direction, but many fans have requested we remake Final Fantasy VII… We’re going to explore the possibility – whether or not we’re going to do it, if we’re going to do it, and the platform.”

Many gamers mistakenly got their hopes up for a remake. “We’re going to explore the possibility” is not only vague, it is little more than a political answer to get away from the question. Wada must have heard the gamers’ want for a remake long before this. The critical part of this quote is “whether or not we’re going to do it” and “if we’re going to do it”. From his vague answers from before, and the lack of any action since then, there is little chance that any remake will happen at all.

It is also interesting to note that the platform is under consideration. Wada has already expressed his wish to move away from the more tech heavy platforms in favor of consoles like the Wii. A Wii version of FF7 or a PSP version of it would be much easier to do, but in reality due to space constraints of the discs involved, the game would be little different from the original. With the game already rereleased on the PSN since June 2009, and the spinoff games successful enough so as to not have to deal with the original, a remake seems like a waste of time. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but don’t get your hopes up.

Kitase essentially confirmed this in Oct 2010 in the FFXIII Ultimania. Furthermore back in March, he posted a tweet on the Square-Enix page saying all the hype for a Final Fantasy XV was essentially BS. In August, Kitase confirmed Wada’s mandate for a new game every two years:

YK: “the FFXIII team is already moving on to their next game, because Wada wants each team to be able to steadily release one game every two years from now on.”

You can be sure that this new game is not a PS3 remake of Final Fantasy VII. In fact, this trend is worrying. Beyond Versus XIII, XIII-2 and the expansions of XIV (games that have been in the works for a while), the newest games have been titles exported to smaller consoles, and much easier games to produce that are not full-fledged RPGs, like the Dissidia games, Final Fantasy Type-0 and the newly announced Theatrythm Final Fantasy. If this trend continues, there might never be a FF15.

3) Motomu Toriyama – “I Want to make the remake”

This is the easiest one to debunk of them all. Siliconera recently interviewed Toriyama, the director of Final Fantasy XIII. This has been cited so many times it’s disgusting. All you need to do is read the full quote. First the interviewer asked Toriyama about any future Final Fantasy games:

Interivewer: Based on fan reaction, what concepts from Final Fantasy XIII will be kept in say Final Fantasy XV or a future Final Fantasy game?

MT: [Laughs.] That’s so far away! The next game in the series is an online one, Final Fantasy XIV. After this we’re still working on the Fabula Nova Crystallis series – Agito XIII, Versus XIII. So, even if we do create the next numbered installment it’s so far away that we haven’t really thought of it.

No plans have been made for the future after XIII’s sequels and XIV. It’s even laughable to him. So you can’t assume that even if Toriyama wanted to do it, he is going to do it. But countless articles out there make it sound like he’s signed up for it. Then the interviewer asks him a HYPOTHETICAL question.

Interviewer: You worked on a bunch of Final Fantasy games. Which one would you want to remake the most?

MT: [Laughs.] That would be Final Fantasy VII!

Sure! If I could program and make a game, I’d do it too! But Toriyama gives a similar qualifier as Kitase does:

MT: If we had the manpower and the time to work on a project, if we were to remake Final Fantasy VII with the quality of Final Fantasy XIII it would become a tremendous project. If we can get the number of people we need by all means that would be the one I would really want to remake.

The problem is there isn’t the time and the manpower. This is the fact that so many sensationalist articles are forgetting. Even Famitsu is guilty of this.

So as I’ve shown with this quotes: 1) No one has actually said they are going to make a remake; 2) Making a remake would take way too much time; 3) At the very least, they would like to make one, but as it stands it is extremely unlikely and it is merely wishful thinking; 4) Square-Enix has not considered making a remake a viable option, nor will it; 5) there might never be another Final fantasy game that approaches the quality of FF13 and 6) any article that gives false hope for a remake is basically quote mining and ignoring reality.

But, you might not still be convinced. Well then, here’s a quick list of the most important reasons why they are NOT making it, and why they will NOT make it:

1) IT WAS JUST A TECHNICAL DEMO!!!

No one even imagined a remake until Square Enix released a Technical Demo for the PS3 in 2004. It depicted a remastered version of the first FMV of the game: Aeris stares at the fireplace, the camera pans up to show all of the city of Midgar, the words “Final Fantasy VII: TECHNICAL DEMO FOR PS3” appear and then the camera zooms in on a train approaching Mako Reactor # 1. Cloud jumps off of it, lunges the Buster Sword at the camera, and holds still for photographers. Since that video was leaked, everyone started to buzz about the possibility of a remake. Everyone assumed wrongly that this remastered video was the first FMV of a new Final Fantasy game. You can find this video easily on YouTube: search for ‘Final Fantasy vii remake’ and you’re sure to find it.

In reality, it was only a technical demo. When new hardware comes out, game companies have to train their programmers and artists to make sure they are able to work with that hardware. When the Sony Playstation 3 was released with its new advanced dual processor hardware , every company had to retrain itself to work with its unique architecture. Naturally, Square Enix chose something simple to demonstrate what they could do. They took the first video from one of their most popular games and remade it with much better graphics, just to see how good they could make it. This was an easy video to do: not too many cuts, only a minute or so long, a zoom out, a zoom in, 1 guy doing a flip in a motion capture studio, and it’s done. This has been done before with every other gaming company. It isn’t as if they made an actual demo of the game, where you could say, play the first level of it and fight the Guard Scorpion again. That at least would be a rational reason to think there might be a remake. But no, for some reason people think this is actually evidence of a remake.

People seem to forget that there was not only a Technical Demo for FF6 done for Playstation, where a battle was reenacted in 3D, but there was also a Technical Demo done for FF8 for the Playstation 2. These remakes did not come to fruition. The original advertisements for FF6 had a real woman dressed up as Celes in it. Was that evidence for a FF6 movie or a live action remake? I don’t think so.

You only have to look at the video itself to know it couldn’t be part of the game. Not only does it say in giant letters: “TECHNICAL DEMO FOR PS3”—not for “FF7 Remake for PS3″—but it is too dissimilar from the original FMV to be part of the game. The fact that only Cloud jumps of the train and stops for that photo op shows that it is inconsistent with the game. In the game, two characters came off the train first, beat up some guards, and then Barret comes off, beckoning Cloud to follow. The video on the other hand suggests that Cloud is alone.

2) THEY HAVEN’T ADVERTISED IT AT ALL!!!

I have already shown that the quotes and comments of the Square-Enix game designers are only addressing hypothetical situations presented by interviewers. But let’s be a bit logical about this. If there was a remake in production, not only would there be a perfectly clear announcement about it, there would also be an OFFICIAL website, official trailers, interviews, and much more talking about the game and spreading hype about the game. This simply does not exist.

Ever since Squaresoft has had the website PlayOnline.com, they have been advertising their new games. There were advertisements for Final Fantasy X when Final Fantasy IX was first released and FFX was barely finished. Final Fantasy XI had been advertised for two years before it was released. Versus XIII, FFXIII-2 and the world of Fabula Nova Crystallis were known to be in production for 3 years before FFXIII was released. A Final Fantasy 7 remake has no such similar hype.

Amazon.com is one of the best ways to test whether or not the rumors are true. The instant Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced, you could pre-order it there (Unfortunately, there is no discount yet….). This game has yet to appear in stores. I pre-ordered it two months before Final Fantasy XIII came out in Japan, a full 3 years before the game was finished. The point is, if any remake was being planned or was in the works, you would be able to pre-order it RIGHT NOW, especially if it was going to be finished by 2012, as the latest myth asserts. So if you believe that a remake is being made or in the works, search Amazon and see if you find it. If you do, tell me, as I would love to see it.

There have been articles sure, some with pictures too. But there is one thing you should notice about all of them. None of them have any photographic or visual material that isn’t either from a promotional still of Advent Children, the original game, the movie of Advent Children, that Technical Demo I mentioned in the previous paragraph, or a fan made cover, video or game mod.

3) JENOVA’S REBIRTH ISN’T REAL!

I had not even heard of this supposed remake “Final Fantasy VII: Jenova’s Rebirth” until I first wrote this article in April 2011. There was no announcement about it on Square-Enix’s site, North American or Japanese. There was no news about it on FFwikia.com which has daily updates on FF news archived for the last 5 years. There were no official images or logos. There still isn’t BTW. The image the article supplied of the game cover did not even say “Final Fantasy VII – Jenova’s Rebirth” on the cover: just Final Fantasy VII!!!! Supposedly there was an article in Famitsu about it. I need not have worried. Long story short: it’s a disgusting April Fool’s Joke.

I learned about it when I was asked by the administrator of this site to write an article for him. I looked at the site before I made the decision to write for it and I saw he wrote an article about a possible Final Fantasy VII Remake. (It’s linked below for some reason…) It talked about how it was slated for release for the last quarter of 2012. Something seemed odd to me, as the video it linked to was a fan made menu, I had seen the fan made game cover at least two years before, and the Famitsu picture showed nothing new. Fortunately, he had a link to his sources which I clicked on. This is something you should always do to check the veracity of something. (My sources are at the end of this article, thank you very much). It brought me back eventually to an article by Chris Pranger written on April 1st, 2010. Wada had said eight days before that “We’re considering the remake” (see above), so I guess Chris thought it would have been funny to write a short and sweet article prematurely. You can google “Jenova’s Rebirth official” and find nothing but links to that fake article and a few more that took it seriously. I would not have mentioned this but so many people believe it.

4) It’s too hard and would take too long.

It took the team that made the movie Advent Children one year to get the graphics as good as they were and to render the cinematics. In that movie, there were only 3D sets of the Sleeping Forest, Midgar (and this was only an exterior view of it), Tifa’s house, a highway, and two towns. Only the sprites for the main cast were made. For a game that would be released on the PS3 or XBOX 360, not only would they have to make a whole new Midgar, they would have to make over an hour of brand new CGI cutscenes, 3D sets for every part of Midgar, as well as sets for all the towns: Kalm, Junon, Fort Condor, Costa Del Sol, Gold Saucer, Corel, Rocket Town, Wutai, Cosmo Canyon, Bone Village, Icicle Inn, the Chocobo Farm, and every dungeon and forest in the game. Then they’d have to make sprites for every character in the game that wasn’t in the movie. Then they would need to redesign around 200 monsters and 70 bosses, all the battle animations for them and the 3D sets each battle takes place in. Then they would have to fix that Bizarro Sephiroth fight because it was way too easy in the original game. They would have to update the music. Do voice acting for approximately 500 pages of dialogue. And so on. How long would this take?

Such a game, if it were made would cost millions, take years and it would only be playable on the PS3. An XBOX 360 port would simply not have the amount of Disk Space necessary to hold a game that big without switching disks constantly. As Kitase said earlier, it would be possible to do more quickly, if the full team of 300 programmers and artists were working on it. But Square-Enix as a company has spread themselves out a lot more than Squaresoft ever did. Square-Enix has workers helping with projects for many more games across all three platforms. The team that would work on it would most likely be smaller, especially since the company has so many other projects to work on. Wada has already expressed is want for new games to take only 2 years to produce, and it would be infeasible for the company to slow down production of these titles for a game that will take 10 years to make.

The only games they have ever remade into 3D versions are Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy IV. Final Fantasy III was famously never released in America until the DS version, and IV was redone for the DS soon after. FF3 was a unmined financial resource, and FF4 is a 20 year old classic, but these remakes were not done for the PS3, but for the DS and PSP, much easier systems to do it for. The sprites and 3D environments built for the game did not require a tenth of the effort needed for a PS3 remake.

The only games that have been remade are the 2D games, but these have been incredibly easy to port. They only made the most minor changes to the graphics for Final Fantasy 4-6, and added some short Full Motion Videos. Other than that, the game remained practically unchanged. The remakes for Final Fantasy I and II get some graphical updates, but these again, did not require nearly as much effort. Put together, all six games wouldn’t amount to more than a dozen megabytes. An FF7 remake would need a 50 GB Blu Ray disc.

5) They already made the FF7 Compilation.

When the decision came to re-open Final Fantasy 7, what Tetsuya Nomura called “Pandora’s Box” for the 10th Anniversary in 2007, they decided NOT to remake the game for the PS2, something that would take too many resources (and would have been finished by now). Instead they decided to make several much smaller and easier games to make, as well as a movie. This led to such games like Crisis Core, Before Crisis, Dirge of Cerberus and Advent Children: two prequels and two sequels. There have also been two animated half hour specials. Personally, I didn’t care for them as I thought they paled in comparison to the original and in some cases ignored it. Crisis Core was very nostalgic and fun to play, but added very little that was relevant to the plot of the original game, and had an ending that almost contradicted it. Dirge of Cerberus was boring, unimaginative and redundant. Before Crisis was short and unnecessary. The original cut of Advent Children, despite being nostalgic, made little sense and presented us with a villain that was merely a stop gap before Sephiroth inexplicably appeared again, and while Cloud as a character was briefly explored, no other character was. For me, Cloud made a personal journey in the movie, but it was almost the same journey he made in the game, and thus it was redundant to see it again. The director’s cut explained the plot a bit more, but still suffered from similar problems. I never believed the story had to continue in the first place.

But no matter what you thought of them, they were as financially successful as a rerelease of the game would have been while taking half the time and cost. These games did not take the company even half the time the original Final Fantasy VII took to make. After that, there has been little need to keep exploiting Final Fantasy VII.

The moral of this story is that when the opportunity came to remake the game, they decided instead to go with the cheaper and easier option. Not make remake a game that lasts 40 hours, but make 2 or 3 new ones that last forty hours combined.

6) They shouldn’t do it anyway.

I admit this is just my opinion, but I don’t want a remake done by Square Enix. The game would not be done justice at all. Personally, I would want a remake that was subtle. I would like a remake that was similar to the FF5 and FF6 Anthology remake. Slightly updated graphics (no more blocky sprites… but not much more than that), a hard mode perhaps, a re-translation (the original game was badly translated… remember “This guy are sick?”), an additional dungeon here and there, more monsters, perhaps an unlockable behind the scenes mode, and most importantly, an option to play the original un-tampered with version of the game. But this won’t happen.

Frankly in regards to the Final Fantasy franchise, there has been too much nostalgia going on. The most popular additions to the Final Fantasy franchise have been the Kingdom Hearts series, the two Dissidia games and the Chocobo games, titles that did not treat the original plots of the games seriously. Even the FF7 compilation made some egregious changes to the plot of the original game. I would be much happier to see a new Final Fantasy game with a just-as-good or better plot than FF7 had, than to see Square-Enix release and re-release a one trick pony. In its day, the company consistently wowed us with new fantastic worlds and great characters. I would be happier to know that at least Square-Enix is still trying to do that.

Personally, I would not want a remake of FF7 to be polluted—there is no other word—by meaningless additions like Kadaj, Genesis, Geostigma, Denzel, the events of Crisis Core, or the random minutiae that have been added by the company and fans since the game was first released in 1997. There might also be another pop-star inserted into the game as part of a contractual obligation in order to put of their hit songs into the game (we’ve seen this with Gackt and Koda Kumi). It is unnecessary to add them, and it just might make the game worse.

Aren’t there enough remakes in Hollywood nowadays? Final Fantasy VII was fantastic, but there must be something new and original out there, right? If you are nostalgic about the game, why not just play it again? I’m lucky to still have my original disks, but even if you don’t, it is available on the PSN. There graphics are bad, sure, but did that stop you from enjoying the game in the first place? If you want it to look better, why not acquire the PC version of the game and get some mods for it? We don’t need a remake to do that.

The bottom line is that the company will most likely choose the most economically expedient alternative. IF they were going to remake FF7, they would do it in a fast manner, and the fastest way is to release it on the PlayStation Network. They could port the game to the PSP, simply because there is less work to do. There isn’t as much work involved in doing that than completely starting from scratch making a game that looks as good as a top of the line PS3 or XBOX 360 game. BUT EITHER WAY, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT A REMAKE OF FF7 IS EVEN BEING PLANNED. Square Enix is more interested in their current projects like the sequels to Final Fantasy XIII and the expansions of Final Fantasy XIV to even consider making a remake. Personally, I am holding out hopes that Versus XIII will be good (as there is little hope that anything else will be). In the mean time, I’ll just play Final fantasy VII again.

PS (7/18/2011): It has come to my attention that I was overly pessimistic with this article, claiming that a remake was impossible. I’ll admit once I researched the matter, I became very discouraged. I wrote this article in good faith so that fans of the series would not be deluded into thinking Square-Enix was diligently making a remake for them when they weren’t, but that they should see what they have actually said plainly before their eyes. This does not mean you should be as discouraged as I was. It is doubtful, but Wada might change his mind, Kitase might make a different estimate, or maybe, demand will be so great, Square-Enix will have no choice. Just because they won’t do it in the foreseeable future does not mean they will never do it. Crisis Core after all was decided upon in a 2 hour meeting. (I think however that if they do do it, it will be released on the 3DS or something, and not be a true remake). It comes down to one thing in the end. If you want a remake, you are going to have to fight for it. Write a petition. Learn how to make some mods and make it yourself. Hell, even offer to work for Square Enix for free so that they’ll have the team they need to make it. Do something if you really want it so badly. But I think it would be the wrong thing to do to just wait and hope for the best.

About TheFFFanatic

as I was saying I pretty much never read articles written by nobodies. but this was a good article. I hope you SE reads this and is voncinvced to make the remake.

jeff nelson

good Job sir you officially debunked all these ff7 rumors finally some one is pointing out the obvious thank you for this article you need to post this article link it and share it on every ff7 rumor website, video, blog, and post around.Thank you for this article and taking the time to do it.

I agree! FFFanatic needs to spread the word via forums and blogs the world over! You can check out FFFanatics videos on Youtube.com. He writes for NERD TREK occasionally but most of his work is available on Youtube.

irv z.

i just completely stopped buying these games after ff10, final fantasy 7 is and always will be my fav. game! they lost a customer and certainly not the only 1 after ff7 advent children!

Thank you for tearing out my heart right out of me. -_-
I understand your points, and all make sense. But, many of us who wish to have a remake of FFVII is purely a wish and/or a dream. I would enjoy a remake, ’cause that way I could at least own a version of FFVII of my own, instead of playing my friend’s. The time and effort is a large deal, but all the same, they are a business, and if FFVII remake would make them money, then they may jump at the chance. They don’t have to make the game with the same graphics as FFXIII, I mean, that would be a bit overboard (for the lack of a better word). But, an upped graphics to non-sprites, or blocky appearance.
As long as the story is the same, the events happen as they should, I’m a happy camper.
But, I digress.
I just want to say, that all of you nay-sayers could be a bit more repectful to the wishes of some fans to see a remake, instead of shoving those dreams into the dirt. Stopping them relentlessly into the ground to hurt us for all eternity with your negativity.
I think being hopeful is not a bad thing. And I think that is what most of us are being, anyway. Hopefull.

SylverDragonRE

A final fantasy 7 remake would either be a great success or a horrible failure. But in reality, i doubt anyone would actually be happy with it. leave the game the way it is but try to improve the series. i enjoyed almost every ff game i have played, except x-2 and frankly i didn’t like xiii, but it’s my opinion. i loved 7 but that was because it was a game from my childhood. i picked it up a few years ago and thought “this game isn’t as great as i remembered.” i still love the game, but after playing ff8, 9, and 10 (all of which i loved), i think a remake would only be a gigantic mistake for square enix. they’re already on a tight leash as it is.

Felipe

A remake does seem like it would be an epic fail and a mistake. But i deep down I can’t help but wish it would happen. See the magic word WISH!! But come on I thought that Dirge of Cerberus was cool cuz Vincent is a mysterous person and that at least some background of his was needed to be known. And Crisis Core in my opinion was awsome as well cuz ya really saw why Zack went through and how Cloud met him and stuff. Jeez sum ppl don’t know how to say when a good game is in front of them.I loved FF7(until my lil bro fucked up the disc’s) and i guess you can’t really call me a FF7 fan cuz i never passed it from the unfortunate event mentioned above,but i guess it wouldn’t be too bad….im late as hell

Kris

I’m always hopeful that the people at Square-Enix will come around and do a remake, but it certainly doesn’t have to be as fancy as their latest Final Fantasy games. I’d be happy with improvements that went as far as the designing of Kingdom Hearts or Crisis Core. And as far as voice acting goes, who needs it?
Anyway, if they never come out with a remake, I SUPPOSE loyal fans will learn to live without. Oh well.

Shawn

I love final fantasy 7. And as dissapointing as this article was we all still have our wishes. Like someone else said we don’t need all these major upgrades. Just some here and there. Square Enix would make more money then ever imagined off of this. But I guess for now all we can do is imagine and hope…

Chelsea

Never before and not since has there been a game I love more than FF7. FF7 was the first rpg I ever played and if it wasn’t for that game I would probably not have the interest I have in video games today. I would love to see this game remaded, I hope it happens in my lifetime.

Burnie

It’s absolutely idiotic NOT to remake this game. I don’t just say it because I, along with many other people want it. I say it because they aren’t making other titles that will even put a dent in the profit they will receive from Final Fantasy 7, FINALLY being remade. Games like The Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery could have easily just not been made. That alone could have been plenty of time to help with FF7. Lastly, I was rather sad at the fact of a couple of my friends falling for an AC video usage. They fell for the one where someone programmed a menu and hp in and all of that stuff. I saw it and instantly knew it was AC, as any big FF7 fan should. sigh… lol.

Jason

Well this article was a waste of time. There was way too much opinion. The author stated several times that the project is IMPOSSIBLE and as we all know it is not. First of all you have no idea what kind of technological improvements have been made since 2005 because there have been tremendous strides in the power to compute more information every second. Computing more information every second means that the game can be rendered faster and more efficiently. You may not have heard of such technological advancements in the gaming industry, but believe me there have been. But the author is correct, we have just ended up at the same place we were at in 2005. There are is no strong and clear evidence of the plans to remake FFVII.

The remake is possible and would generate more sales than any game they have ever made including the original. Take a new perspective for a second, yes, 1995-2000 was an exciting time in the gaming industry. More and more new gamers were emerging and the gaming industry sky-rocketed so the game became very popular and became a legend. This game paved the way for new revolutionary games to involve 3-D environments. The gaming industry back then was a mere infant compared to what it is today. IF FFVII were to be released in the future, they would sell an unprecedented amount of copies.

The estimated 10-12 years to make the remake was a quick estimate by one person and should not be taken seriously. With the technological strides in computing technology it would take nearly 1/2 that time and the 4-5 year creation of the remake would be overcompensated in global sales. The remake on PS3 or next gen consoles would break records and soon become the best selling game of all time.. period. Millions of fans for the original would most definitely purchase the remake and millions of new gamers that never had the chance to play the original, would buy the remake and drool over its superiority over other games. This is just a different perspective on the remake the author failed to mention. The remake is most definitely possible and is most definitely profitable.

I think I used the word impossible once… but never mind. The remake is certainly possible, but it is not feasible or practical despite any technological advancement in 2 YEARS (the new time limit Yoichi Wada has set for game development). You need a team of several hundreds to make any game faster than that no matter how good your technology is, and if the company is not willing to provide this (which it isn’t)… then it isn’t going to happen!!!

That “one guy who should not be taken seriously” who made the estimate is the guy who has either directed or produced EVERY Final Fantasy game since 1990. I think he should be taken seriously, especially when Motomu Toriyama said a similar thing (He said 9 years). He directed FF13. If you cant believe the people who actually made the damn games… who can you believe?

Wada’s goal has been to move the company away from making huge graphically enhanced games. An FF7 Remake would be one of those games. Taking the simple logic that you cant make a game that is estimated would take 4-12 years in 2 years, especially when Wada has said “We will not use as many team resources as FF13 had on an RPG again” I said its impossible. I don’t see much opinion in that.

And the article isn’t useless. It had 2 goals: 1) to show that there is no remake being planned or made right now as many people seem to believe, There isn’t.

2) I showed via the various quotes that the people who are making the games find it infeasible to do so.

Hypothetically it is possible, and many people would buy it. It might not necessarily be profitable: if the company has to “waste” Several years on it at the expense of all other games (the only way the game would be made any faster than Kitase’s estimate), just to produce an FF7 remake that probably would not be as good as the original anyway they might end up losing money. Game companies cant afford to live or die based on the sales of 1 game. It’s a stupid business decision, and despite what you or I would want, I don’t think Wada would take the risk. As it stands today, it is not possible.

Most importantly, that one guy whose opinion shouldn’t be taken seriously, is the guy the CEO (the guy who doles out the money and team assignments to make all game projects) is going to talk to. If he thinks it’s infeasible and not going to work, that’s what the company will end up believing. If you want a remake, you’ll have to change that one guy’s mind.

You seem to believe that just because you can imagine it to be easy, it is easy. You don’t seem to be cognizant of how much work making an FF7 would actually be, and that’s IF all of the relevant documentation (production notes, source code, code comments, maps and models, concept art) from the original game still exists in their archives after 14 years and is good enough to work with. If not, the process will take even longer! Frankly, Kitase is in a better position to judge the magnitude of the problem than you or I are.

Jason Kenney

What this does prove to me, is we are never going to see cinematic rpgs with the depth of the PS1/PS2 era. Its too expensive. If it is too expensive to remake a game with an already written script, actual assets to base it off of, and even possibly source code that could be ported. Then its clearly too expensive to create a new game of the same magnitude. We’ve gotten to the point where the expectation in graphics has made it too expensive to make a game worth playing. So I doubt these 2 year games are going to be any good.
Not that I blame SE, I’ve been surprised they’ve bothered with RPG’s at all, considering .99 mobile phone games are where the money is.

Jason, I love your optimism and I hope you are right. I do agree that if Square-Enix were to release a Final Fantasy 7 remake they would rake in the dough hand over fist.

It would be nice to give Square-Enix another chance to redeem themselves. After a return to the old style of the Final Fantasy classics perhaps they will realize what the fans have been waiting for.

GamexBoyxLove

Eh…I don’t know I don’t think remakes are that bad but it is the author’s opinion. I feel that remakes are a way for the company to show their fans how much they care and I guess remakes are a way for a company to reward their fans.

Though I do agree I’d much rather be happy knowing that they’ll make more great stories and games like ff7 or just be different. I’m tired of people always complaining why the newer games aren’t like ff7 or be like it. But…they get upset if characters seem to be clones of ff7 characters (Lightening=Cloud=Squall).

Not the most important thing square enix should focus on but I wouldn’t deny that I’d be jumping for joy if it was announced. Since technology was limiting back in the days and with today’s technology perhaps they can bring to life what they really wanted to show since…come on you can barely see Cloud or his crew most of the times…hell I think the finger pointing to them is the most seen character in the game. lol

If they remake it awesome, I would buy it. If notI do understand this is a huggggeee world to recreate, as well as an updated script, character design and well…just about everything. Just hopefully Square Enix puts more focus on their future games and personally would love to see a sequel to the world ends with you (random topic all together).

But a great article and very well written. And to square enix if they are going to remake it I would hope they spend more then 3 years on ff7 because I would hate to see one of my most beloved games turn into nothing more then a cash cow (or more of a cash cow). Hopefully..they know this and will have every hair piece, voice over and story element given great justice, don’t even care if that means it being on the next next gen consoles.

jmg0587

Thank you to the original poster for all of your hard work in compiling the quotes from the SE employees. I really do appreciate it, as it can be hard to find the real information out there in cyberspace.

That being said, please let me kindly disagree with you; further, I ask you to consider my reasoning.

I don’t disagree that there is no official word on a remake of FF7. To me, that much is clear. Having conceded this, I hope you can concede that there is no way you can indefinitely rule out a remake (which the title of your article suggests – that there is no possible way they will be doing a remake).

This same exact scenario came up right before Final Fantasy 14 was released, if you kept up with that title. First, a trailer was leaked that was “simply a sample of the graphics-generator that will be utilized in future games by SE”. This was what the presentation of the trailer was for a long, long time. Basically, the trailer included characters that were similar to those in FF11 – just with updated graphics. Many fans buzzed about the possibility of a new MMO, but SE (and many others with logic similar to yours in this article) contended that it was simply a demo of the graphics that SE was capable of.

Here we are today, though, with a brand new MMO by SE (FF14), and it turns out their trailer was, in fact, a demo for the new game. Of course SE wanted to keep it under wraps as long as possible so they continued to claim that it was merely a demo and not based on any particular, planned project.

In short, based on a situation that occured with the same company and a very similar circumstance (a new/updated game), I find it impossible to completely rule out a remake of FF7. To say it will not happen without question is simply ludicrous given the history of SE. Even if it isn’t likely, many people still wish for it to be so, and by trying to convince others from hoping for it, you may potentially be sinking the ship. After all, the cries of many fans could only increase the probability of a remake, right? It certainly won’t hurt it.

Roleplay version: You may have cast “silence” on this forum, but I hereby cast “esuna” to counter you =]

Remember that the article is called Why there will not be an FF7 Remake IN THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE for the PS3 or XBOX 360. If the studio completely changes their minds, then this article is wrong.

The FF14 and FF7 comparison you make doesn’t hold water. The situation isn’t similar at all. There have been websites, interviews and press releases for FF14 far earlier than what you say there have been. The trailer came late, but that’s not the first thing that appears anyway. You are considering the rumors and opinions of gamers much more than the opinions and claims of the company itself. I was aware they were making a new MMORPG (that would eventually be called FF14 back in 2006. They had not confirmed or denied that it was FF14 yet (as FF13 wasn’t in the works yet), but you did know it was something new and that they were working on something.

We also have to consider the time scale. Between that ‘tech demo’ of FF14 and the announcement of FF14 we around 3 years. For FF7 it would be around 7 years. 3 years is reasonable for a game of this magnitude. 7 is not.

Roleplay version: You can’t cast esuna if you have silence already cast on you. 😉

Kyfas

Well i guess unattainable dreams are the best kind. xD

Still, i was discussing this with a friend of mine when i got a crazy idea, xD. Take into consideration that i understand zero about programing and stuff, so i don’t know how unrealistic this idea is.

Sooo, what do you guys thing about the game being remade with at least Crisis Core quality graphics, BUT cut into several parts? Like, Final Fantasy VII remake part 1, 2, and so on.

This way they (theoretically) could do the remake with awesome quality while keeping the story intact AND they could release one part every two years until it was complete. Also by doing it this way they could (maybe) even improve the graphics from part to part.

Do you think it could be done? How do you think the fans would welcome this solution?

Man writing this stuff i started to wish they would do it for PC so they could release a patch in the end that would enable us to install all the parts on PC and run it like it was a single game. (haha again i have no idea if this is even possible but let me dream a bit here xD)

TheFFFanatic

The graphics suggestion, I wouldn’t mind… but the Part 1, Part 2 aspect would be unforgivable.

Kyfas

Unforgivable? Strong word for what i suggested. You’re too picky. No wonder they’re afraid to do it. They probably don’t want to make such an effort just to be flamed afterward.

If they could guarantee the remake would be exactly like the original but with better graphics (like, ps3 graphics), with all its stories, huge maps, easter eggs and so on (with the bonus of a complete ending), and the only thing they asked in return was that we didn’t mind it coming in parts, man would i kiss their feet.

Books and movies come in parts too. Besides, didn’t the original game came in parts as well? It’s just that those parts were released at the same time, as a “whole” game. At the time their limitation was technology, now its resources.

If you, as well as many others like you, are so delusional as to want perfection, then i start to loose my arguments against Square’s lack of action regarding the remake.

thefffanatic

That’s a strong reply. I’m not delusional for expecting that if they remake the game, they remake the WHOLE game and sell it all at once. I wouldn’t pay 60 dollars for half of a game. Besides, it just wouldn’t work. They would have to make the game twice or something, reformat the game so the split would make sense. It would just be odd. The original game DID NOT come out in parts; it came with 3 CDs all at once. If DVDs had existed at the time, they wouls have put it on 1 disk. They would never have sold only Disc 1. It wasnt part 1, part 2 and part 3. Movies and Books coming out in parts is a marketing gimmick at best and almost always frustrating as hell.

And I am willing to compromise. You asked for a graphics reduction. I would be all for that. It’s not that I want perfection; I at least expect to finish the game when I buy it.

Kyfas

Sorry for the strong reply. It’s just that, despite everyone knowing how difficult it would be to remake the game, lately I’ve read a lot of post is forums and such, where people complain about small things and want it to be made fast and perfect and exactly like the original, and other stuff, and saying how angry they’d be if they changed this or that detail. That annoyed me a bit. That’s why your blunt “unforgivable” got me a bit hot headed.

The remake could never be exactly like the original. For starters, they’d probably polish the plot a bit. For instance, when they made the first game they were running behind schedule and that resulted on a cliffhanger ending and incomplete development of Vincent and Yuffi.

Ok i don’t think people would complain about that. But then would come the other changes. The ones I’ve seen more discussed are:

– The camera view: would it follow Cloud from behind or would it be from above like the original?

– Battle: real time or turn based?

– Cloud in a dress: omg Cloud in a dress with HD quality graphics, lol. Would he speak like in the original, or would he stay quiet during just that scene (minor plot change) as to obviously not give himself in, because realistically no guy can try to imitate a woman’s voice and not at least cast suspicion on himself. Unless of course the guy in disguise is ugly, resulting in his female version being butt ugly, in which case people don’t seem surprised to hear a high pitched manly voice, for some reason. xD Not Cloud’s case though. I think if we actually saw him disguised as a girl he probably would be prettier than myself and most girls i know. xD

– Love triangle: i don’t think anyone expects that one to ever being explicitly resolved, but perhaps they should (or not) give more detail to scenes like the highwind scene (in case you develop more the relationship with Tifa). Like, for me it’s quite obvious what happened, but of course people go and say how they didn’t necessarily go all the way, and that Advent children was so vague on their relationship that it seems odd that they were ever so close, and of course the CloudxAerith fans who egoistically want Cloud to be stuck to a dead girl for the rest of his miserable life, and just wont face facts. Or realism for that matter. xD I could go on but I’m getting off topic.

So basically my point is that, wanting the game remade with all the improvements necessary (graphics and story) withing a reasonable time would be too good to be true. So either they take their time doing it (they refuse) or some sacrifices would have to be made. I suggested one possible sacrifice (coming out in parts), because the other ones are graphics, story/world (they could shorten them) and playability. And don’t think you can choose only one of those. =P

On a side note, you don’t like movies coming out in parts? I admit that sometimes the wait for the next one is painful, but that would only mean that i liked the movie a lot, and when the (usually) trilogy is all out i can have a LOT of hours worth of a story i like. Think positive! xD Can you imagine if each season of a series was instead a movie? It’d suck. This reminds me of when they announced Harry Potter 7 would be separated in 2 parts. Many fans were like oh noz boo hoo that sucks, i was like omg thank the heavens! If they tried to make that book into a single movie the time line would be so awkward, the events so rushed, and the explanations so short and blunt. I don’t know if you like HP or not and understand what I’m saying, but i think you get the idea. It was just an example.

Sorry for the wall of text. I tried my best not to make it double this size. xD

Jason Kenney

The best option would be to release a .99 remake of the demo. It needs to be .99 to gauge interest (this will disuade people from downloading it just because its free). The demo itself IIRC was the game up to the Scorpion Battle.

Then if there is interest release for $5 the Midgard section of the game.

And portion out the rest of the game similar to Sonic 4. And at the end of it all release a collector’s edition with the entire thing.

im a software developer. the remake can be done in a year. FF7 will release, date TBA. Your post put me to sleep..

TheFFFanatic

Any proof of this?

Jiffy

Did Cloud need proof he was in SOLDIER to kick ass? NO! He just did it and made it happen. Once he found out he wasn’t actually in SOLDIER he still kicked ass and even harder than before. BOught time you did the same and man UP!!!

Fuckin hater.

Jiffy

I render crazy ass graphics and could make a 3-d cloud in less than an hour. If I can do this then of course the pros can! COME ON!!

Jiffy

Haters. FF7 remake is being made now in Japan. Evidence is in magazines when I was there during the earthquake no less. I read about 3 or 4 magazines that had FACTS about the remake. It’s coming and you better QQ

Hey, I’m no hater. But I’m not stupid enough to believe rumors and sensationalist articles. You need proof and some links–sourceable links–to check if your sources are true. WTF does Cloud being in SOLDIER have to do with it? I’ll retract this article IF and ONLY IF Square-Enix themselves announces it. Not because of some hype article you say you’ve read without giving any details. If it’s actually announced, I’m all for it (I just hope they wont screw it up). The actual evidence says it wont be. Jenova’s Rebirth is not real.

I dont understand why people don’t get this. Yes, hypothetically a company could make the game in a year. BUT, if the company will not assemble the team to do it, and if all of the estimates the programmers give the CEO say it would take too long, and the CEO doesnt want to take the risk, then it isnt gonna happen.

PS: There’s a big difference between rendering a poorly drawn image of Cloud and making a game with it.

bronson

hey bro i hope you like the fat cock shoved in your mouth via official announcement of final fantasy 7: jenova’s rebirth i hope your glad you wrote this whole thing for nothing you tool

Give me a link to this official announcement of FF7: Jenova’s Rebirth and I’ll admit I’m a tool.
The only article that even mentions it is the NerdTrek article on this page. And it was based on an article written on APRIL 1st 2010 by Chris Pranger. An April Fool’s Joke is NOT an announcement.

FINALFANTASY N3RD

OMG i have Final Fantasy 1 2 3 4 6 8 9 10 11 12 and 13 i CANT WAIT ANYLONGER IM ADDICTED TO FINALFANTASY ILL DIE WITH A CONTROLLER, CONSOLE, AND ALL THE FINALFANTASY GAMES

Seriously brother, this article is unfounded. The amount of revenue a FF7 remake would easily justify the development resources and time needed to make the game (that right there is enough of a counter arguement to the entire article). This game is powerful enough to be a system mover (friends that I have known to grow out of gaming years ago would drop the money for a system and the game just for this), and with how poorly Square Enix is doing right now with the luke warm reception of FFXIII (sold well, but wasn’t well liked), the stale reception of FFXIV (does anyone even play it anymore?), and with releasing their better games on a poorly supported platform (PSP games – Dissidia 1 & 2, 3rd Birthday, Crisis Core), they seriously need a game that is going to boost their company’s name back to the top of the pack of publishers and developers.

I work in the software development world, and I know how much time, money, and resources a video game takes to make. It’s an insanely expensive endevour, especially something as complex as a full fledge RPG, but making this game is a complete no brainer.

If SE is so blind as to miss the hype-train created by a tech demo from 7 years ago; a game they are asked about in just about every serious press event they hold; a game that, even 11/12 years after its release, was the number one selling game on the PSN for a few months straight, then they are truely a company lost within itself (just like NOA?) and can’t see the fountains of money before it.

…and let me just say, an FF7 remake would be a money making machine.

In any case, despite anything I have to say, let’s just hope that you turn out to be wrong. 🙂

I agree with you (I even said so in the article). I don’t know what you mean by unfounded though; I only wrote this thing because I saw so many people falling for that Jenova’s Rebirth April Fools Joke. Obviously, they’d make millions with an FF7 remake. But they don’t really seem to want to do it.

Square-Enix needs the boost, but imo, I wish it wasn’t from an FF7 remake, but something that new and just as good or better.

uuu

[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3013/2503998181_33a2c70d47.jpg[/img]
or this

well if there not going to make a remake the please make a cg movie of the real ff7 story i was thinking they dident make a cg movie of the story cuz they where going to make a remake so if not make a movie thats what i was thiking AC was going to be about

nathaniel

u make a good point

Dark Requim

Hmmm…
Some points in this are…somewhat valid. But others do not make sense. See, I think you may be reading some of the statements wrongly. But, as always, opinions will always be different. The only way to know for sure what they meant with some of these comments is to go and ask them ourselves.
I doubt they’d answer, though.
What Kyfas mentioned about ‘Parts’ is also a very easily done way to make a game. But how I’m thinking of it is different then…Him(?). The way I think of it is, they start ‘Part 1’ which is, of course, Midgar and the beginning. About halfway through part 1, another team of programmers starts of the next ‘Part’ and so on. They could easily make FF7 with three teams of programmers and splitting the story into parts. By doing that, they could, most likely, reduce the production time to make the game.
They don’t have to do full voice-acting either. Just for important plot scenes. And the programmers could take models they made for other games(KH2, Dissidia, ETC) and update them somewhat for a newer version of the game(IE: FF7).
Most fans would probably kill for a FF7 game with FF10 graphics, let alone graphics from the past couple of years. So, really, Square Enix could probably use that graphics engine if they really wanted to…
But, again, the 9-12 years isn’t realistic. Unless, of course, they mean to over do the graphics like they did FF13. Really, most of the fans probably(most likely, but I’m just me, after all, not the whole FF7 fandom) would probably be happy with something similiar to what they did with Crisis Core(which, as a whole, was not a bad game. It wasn’t the best in the world, but it wasn’t the worst either). Also, what you said about Crisis Core’s ending not completely connecting with FF7’s beginning(if I worded it right…), I’m curious as to what you meant with that.
Also, for all we know, Square Enix could be making a FF7 remake and not tell us about it till the last minute. You know, to make it so they aren’t pestered too much about it?
And, last piece of business…
People are just way too damn picky. Prolly why SE hasn’t actually made it, they see all the comments and complaints about how it ‘won’t be the same’ or ‘It’d be lame’…Yeah, That’d dampen anyone’s spirit. It’d also make them think there wouldn’t be as much profit as there actually would be if they did it. They might even think it’d be waste of resources, when, really, it would probably be one of the greatest things they could do for the fans…
….I’m going to go stare at Cloud on my KH2 game now, mainly because I have nothing else to do on the stupid thing(AGH).
Would love to hear (anyone’s) responses/opinions to this.

realbill

just remake ff7 to todays standards…making it look better and sharper…a simple up to date tune up is all thats needed

Nick

I agree with the Xbox comments.. Square possibly doesn’t want to make FFVII exclusive to the ps3 the current Xbox system wouldn’t be able to handle a FFVII remake. If Square wanted to they could remake FFVII with the same graphics as Crisis Core.. it would have been done already. It’s true they got all these other projects right now so it’s really hard to say whether or not Square decides to continue on with the legacy or head towards remaking classic FF games.

Chances are they like everyone else wants a full FFVII remake instead of a cheap update which i felt FFIV got. They did a good job for the DS, except the most annoying thing is the polygons. Eventually a FFVII remake will happen. It won’t happen now & we wont’ know what new projects Square will spawn. And if Square won’t do it someone else might try.

Derek

What a lot of people don’t understand, is how much “meat” is in Final Fantasy 7.
Think about it this way: Take FF 13, turn it into FF 7’s graphics, scrap the voice acting. You have about 5 hours worth of gameplay. FF 7, has so much dialogue. So many different areas, you literally see the entire world, and travel it.
There is just so much that is done in Final Fantasy VII that it becomes totally unrealistic to think it can be made in the same time frame as Final Fantasy XIII.

However, would be completely content with a Vita remake with crisis core graphics. Hell, i’d be happy with the FF IV remake graphics. 🙂

keven

Maybe it a too big project but they haven’t made a game as nearly as good as ffvii and i don’t even play square-enix game anymore it’s just bull crap, how can they make such great game and give us shitty remake of all the ff we don’t want to replay, no need to upgrade the graphics it’s as shitty as it was with a slight improvement, the big mistake was to merge with enix, square was doing some great ff, enix made star ocean too who stop beeing great after the merger, ffxiii is full of enix future shit that doesnt fit with ff, oh and why was it okay to take 5years making ffx , and where the fuck is ffxiii versus it’s the only game you made since the merger that look great but we don’t even know if it really exist !!!!!! long live tales of !!!!!!!

RagingDragon

I just read the entire article, and have mixed feelings about it.

Im not too familiar with how companies work, but here’s my opinion.

I didnt play the original game. My only knowledge over what happened in FF7 is from reading online, playing Dirge of Cerberus, Dissidia, and just recently Crisis Core.

I finished crisis core and frankly the ending really touched me. And the main reason for me being here at all is because the ending included a short where Cloud pops into the train and introduces himself as SOLDIER First Class, Cloud. Then the screen fades into saying “Continued in Final Fantasy 7”.

I dont know how accurate that plays into you hardcore fans, but I thought it was awesome and it made me feel like looking up what the possibilities of a sequel are.

There were a lot of things that were left unexplained in crisis core. Cissnei is one, since apparently she wasn’t on the original game but played a good role on crisis core.

A lot of focus apparently went into setting the stage for FF7. And it makes me feel that crisis core set the stage for the sequel pretty damn well, since it makes me feel like playing the continuation.

Some of you might say that I should play the original to see how much better it is, but frankly I wont. After playing crisis core I dont want to go play a game with that much of a drop in graphic quality.

I would be happy if they made the remake into the psp and made it in style of how Crisis core was. The mix between text and cut-scenes seemed balanced to me.

The only big problems I see with my how I picture it is making the remake following up where Crisis core left off and the battle system. The story team would have to make sure that there is no plot holes and make sure that everything that happened in crisis core continues into what happens in the original FF7.

thefffanatic

I have to tell you, Dissidia and Crisis Core really did not understand the characters. First of all, in the original game, Cloud’s memory and disposition was so bad, it would have been impossible for him to “walk onto and walk off” a train. Dirge of Cerberus was just needless and boring. Graphics should just not come into it. The original puts all the ‘sequels’ to shame. Even the original’s battle system is better. I guess it is up to you, but I no idea why Crisis Core is even somewhat popular after playing the original.

demons19420

i just got done reading this article and i believe everything that was said is accurate. ive been waiting for a ffvll remake for 15 years after i played it but nothing happened 8 9 x x-2 xl and so on came out but no ffvll. pretty soon no one is going to know what ffvll even is with all the new games coming out so yes the money may be there but i personally dont think im going to buy a game and play it when im thirty or forty plus in my opinion if a remake did come that would be this generations ffvll and the old version would just be lost and the true meaning of it out the window.

Final Fantasy Fan

First of all the guy talks as though he knows about the truth. Nobody does, but since he spends damn near 20 pages just elaborating his “theory” im going to put mine in. The reason why Final Fantasy VII isn’t getting remade YET, key word, YET! is because Square knows this is their instant million dollar maker. why waste it? When the company realizes one of two things, either their funds are drying up or final fantasy is losing steam. Did you guys know that thats why final fantasy is named FINAL fantasy? Because when they came out with the first game, it was their make it or break it game. Read their history! and think about it, if you got something everybody wants, but you can keep selling your “other” stuff, why sell your most prized YET?

Rowley Somers

Funny thing is: There have been rumours about a remake for 5 years now. If they actually had start on it back then instead of speculating about how long it would take all this time, it would be almost finished…

chance

money wouldnt be a problem for them. if they needed to they could start a fund for it on kickstart and advertised it i’m sure the money for a remake would pour in. i think its probably right to think that manning and production time are the biggest hurdles.

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Loooooooooooooooool

A 3DS remake of 1 or 6 would be what I want. Sure, It would only be a fraction of the profitability of a remake of 7, but they could whip up 1 in a few months and 6 in a year or so. at even an 8th of the profit of a 7 remake, it would still be more time efficient. and if you want a remake of 7, just play the damn original!

Luka

i doubt we will ever see a remake! Squaresoft(enix) has gone too far in the wrong direction with the final fantasy franchise and they have focused too much on flashy cinematics, voice acting and FMV whilst the stories have grown thin. i think most if not all fans want to recapture that time in their lives when they were playing FF7 way back but its just not possible.

Pyke

So…..you are so wrong….this is all bullshit

Jonathan G. Nelson

The full title of the article as displayed is: Why there will NOT be a Final Fantasy 7 Remake in the foreseeable future (for the PS3 and XBOX 360 anyway)

This was posted in 2011.

I would say it was accurate at the time but public outcry for a sequel have thankfully resulted in something we may all rejoice about! 🙂